Teen Transformation Of The Week - Steven Drenth!

On his high school wrestling team, Steven noticed he was the smallest and weakest. So, in order to gain some mass, he decided to take the advice of his coach and focus on heavy lifting. Read on to learn how he put on 55 pounds of solid muscle!

I can remember always being one of the smallest kids in my class all the way through elementary school. When I started my 8th grade year I remember that all of my friends whom I hadn't seen all summer had all grown a lot taller and bigger and I was still the same size, which was about 100 pounds.

I never played any sports until my freshman year of high school. I decided to try wrestling because all my friends were doing it. I was the smallest kid on the team, which I didn't really like. I wanted to be one of the "big guys" that we watched at the wrestling meets. I knew the only way I was going to become that big was to take the advice from my coach and start lifting weights.

Click Image To Enlarge.I Was The Smallest KidOn The Wrestling Team.

How I Did It

During my sophomore year I got into a strength and conditioning class that was offered at my school. In the class we focused on five lifts - Bench Press, Deadlift, Parallel Squat, Box Squat, and Towel Bench. At the beginning of the year we wrote down some specific goals that we wanted to reach.

Towel Bench Press:The athlete places a thick round cushion under the shirt to prevent the barbell from touching the chest. If a towel bench pad is not available, the athlete can make one with three towels rolled up to about a five-inch diameter. The towel bench increases confidence and helps prevent pain or injury to the shoulder-joint area.

We had to keep track of every single lift that we did in order to track our progress. Keeping track of everything made it a lot more rewarding when I could see my improvements from week to week. In the class we did mostly low rep sets such as 3 by 3, and 5 by 5. Also, every couple weeks we would do high reps so that our bodies did not get too used to the workout schedule and plateau.

Click Image To Enlarge.We Had To Keep Track Of Every Lift.

We would also change the order of all of the lifts every couple weeks in order to not get used to the workout. In order to avoid overtraining we only went into the weight room three times per week. The other days were usually were spent doing a light workout such as running or playing a game.

I was, by far, the weakest boy in the strength and conditioning class at the beginning of the year. However, I was also one of the most devoted and hardest working and it showed after a couple of months when I was seeing much bigger gains than everyone else.

Click Image To Enlarge.I Was Seeing Much BiggerGains Than Everyone Else.

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